01
Toyota can't make sports cars
What Morizo evaluates is the realm of speed and g-forces beyond the limits of the tires, where you control the car, a realm Toyota had never evaluated in development before. When he drove the first GR Yaris development car, the team was full of confidence, but it was so bad that people were saying maybe Toyota couldn't make sports cars, maybe they should ask Subaru for a sporty 4WD. Saito and his team started from there.
02
To the race scene with production engineering
Normally production engineering is consulted once prototypes exist, but for the GR Yaris, production engineers were brought in from the planning and development stage. Together they toured the places where rally and circuit racing teams build their cars, and thought about how to achieve race-car-level precision and lightness on the production line without raising investment or cost. The people who assemble the car were also given test drives, so the team's commitment was shared even before line-off.
03
The President's 4WD Practice, in a Toyota
President Akio Toyoda, who competes in rallies as Morizo, was using Subaru's WRX to practice 4WD driving. Saito says that, as an employee, this was deeply frustrating. He wanted the president to practice in a car built by Toyota employees. That frustration also lies at the root of the GR Yaris's development. For 20 years Toyota had not built a sports car with its own hands, and had developed no sports 4WD at all.
